The stakeholders from the Industry and Trade sector held a pre-budget meeting with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday and recommended corporate tax rate reduction to encourage large investment.

The stakeholders from the Industry and Trade sector held a pre-budget meeting with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday and recommended corporate tax rate reduction to encourage large investment. The industry chamber Assocham, one of the major stakeholders, proposed to cut the corporate tax rate to 25 percent to encourage large investment. The industry chamber also asked for divident distribution tax rate reduction considering 14A disallowance. The industry body also asked the government to hike the tax exemption limit for salaried people and senior citizens. The pre-budget consultation meetings with different stakeholder groups started on 5 December, 2017. Finance Minister’s first meeting was with representatives of different Agriculture Groups.

Apex industry associations like Assocham have already written to Arun Jaitley seeking tax reliefs for implementation of resolution plans under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016. In a recent letter to Jaitley, Assocham Secretary-General DS Rawat had suggested that the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) be given statutory powers to grant concessions/reliefs from certain provisions of the Income Tax Act in the approved resolution plan order. This is needed to ensure wider participation of serious resolution applicants and effective restructuring of stressed businesses, according to the Assocham letter.

The Narendra Modi-led government is set to present Union Budget 2018 on 1 February, just like it did last year. This budget which will be presented by Arun Jaitley will also be the last budget of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government before the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Union Budget 2018 will also be India’s first budget post-GST-implementation. Even though independent India’s biggest tax reform of GST was implemented from July 1, the Budget for 2017-18 (April- March), had followed the practice of tax revenue projections under the heads of customs duty, central excise and service tax alongside direct tax numbers. With excise duty and service tax being subsumed in the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the classifications will undergo change, an official said, according to PTI.

Many trade unions and stakeholders have raised concerns surrounding GST. The Association of National Exchanges Members of India (Anmi) has flagged concerns about the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime creating “some difficulty” in the financial market. “Rate of GST applicable on brokerage for share transaction is 18 per cent which is on much higher side and has further inflated the cost of transaction. We appeal to reduce the rate of GST to 12 per cent in the ensuing Budget,” the group had said.